For newlyweds in Cyprus, a pomegranate was more than just a fruit. Following the wedding ceremony, the fruit would be broken on the threshold of the couple’s home, the many seeds symbolising fertility and abundance in their new life together.
The exact way in which this was done varied. Research collected by the Cyprus Food and Nutrition Museum records accounts where the bride would throw the pomegranate on the threshold, scattering the seeds. In another version, the groom would throw the pomegranate against the lintel after his mother gave it to him as the couple entered their new home.
This is just one among many traditions that made the pomegranate part of Cypriot life. It was put into baskets for sowing as a symbol of a good harvest, given to newborn babies in parts of Paphos and used in kollyva during memorial services.
The same fruit could appear at different stages in a person’s life from birth and marriage to death. Its symbolism in Cyprus dates back much further still, with evidence of the pomegranate on the island dating back more than 3,000 years.
According to Dr Charalampos Dokos, whose research focuses on Cypriot and Mediterranean archaeology, pomegranates are believed to have reached Cyprus in the late Bronze Age, around the 13th and 14th centuries BC.
Some of the earliest known traces of pomegranates were found in tombs. Sceptres decorated with pomegranates have been found in wealthy tombs in Engomi while glass fruits in the shape of pomegranates were discovered in a tomb near Larnaca and at Curium. Pomegranate motifs have also been found at Ayios Iakovos and Kition.
The fact that so many of these objects came from tombs points to another aspect of the fruit’s symbolism. Its red juice and plentiful seeds allowed it to represent life and fertility but also death and possibly the afterlife. “Their emphasis on an afterlife may have established the pomegranate as a representation of life in death,” Dokos says.
From Bronze Age tombs to Aphrodite
The fruit reappears in several other accounts from ancient Cyprus. Dr Chrystalleni Lazarou, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Cyprus Food and Nutrition Museum, points to the ancient writer Athenaeus, who recorded a tradition that the pomegranate was the only tree planted in Cyprus by Aphrodite.
As Lazarou explains, “the fruit therefore became connected with fertility, love and the generative power of nature. The Cyprus Food Museum records this association in its documentation of the ancient Cypriot name rhoa for the pomegranate”. Pomegranates also show up much later in Roman mosaics at Nea Paphos, including one in which the personification of Spring holds the fruit.
However, this does not mean that the Bronze Age beliefs surrounding the fruit survived unchanged into a Cypriot wedding custom thousands of years later. Lazarou says the evidence points to a long continuity in association with fertility, renewal and abundance, while the rituals themselves evolved within different historical and religious contexts.
A fruit for every stage of life
A few of these later traditions took the pomegranate’s abundance quite literally. In some Cypriot villages during sowing, a pomegranate was placed into the zembili or basket in which the seed would be carried. The many seeds symbolised the grains that the earth would yield, with the pomegranate acting as a wish for a plentiful harvest.
In some parts of Paphos, the fruit was also associated with the start of a child’s life. Pomegranate juice mixed with honey and sugar was placed on a newborn’s lips in the hope that the baby would grow up “sweet” in disposition. Other accounts describe giving a little juice before breastfeeding in the hope that the baby would grow up to be healthy, happy and “red like a pomegranate”
The symbolism shifted again at death, with pomegranate seeds being incorporated into the kollyva, the wheat based preparation used at memorial services, where Lazarou says their red colour represented the blood of the deceased. Within the wider Christian symbolism of kollyva, death was also connected with resurrection and eternal life.
For Lazarou this helps explain how a single fruit could carry apparently opposing meanings. Full of seeds, it represented life and reproduction; however, its red color could also symbolise blood and death. The pomegranate therefore could be present at birth, wedding or funeral without carrying the same meaning in each instance.
The fruit also had more practical uses. Pomegranates were eaten fresh and their juice was used as a drink and or sometimes as a substitute for lemon juice, while the dried peel was used for dying.
From tradition to trade
The pomegranate was not only a symbolic presence in Cyprus. By the 19th century, it was also an established crop and export.
Research carried out by the Cyprus Food Museum through the FoodCultCy Project found pomegranates among the items purchased for the Archbishopric’s kitchen in 1872. Historical sources also point to the Famagusta district as an important centre of cultivation. In his 1855 work, Athanasios Sakellarios wrote of ships from Alexandria being loaded with pomegranates from Varosha.
The trade also continued into the British period. Cyprus’ official records show pomegranates among the island’s fresh fruit exports, mainly destined for Egypt. Over time, however, their commercial importance declined as many pomegranate groves were replaced by citrus cultivation.
Despite this, the fruit remained visible beyond the orchard. The shape of pomegranates was incorporated into wood carvings and furniture, while pomegranate trees still grow outside people’s homes. Dokos says that in many older houses they came to represent life and prosperity for the family.